Public Issues

Provides abstracts and full-text articles from more than 10,000 books, scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, and reference works on a wide variety of topics. Can also select or choose all the databases that the company provides by clicking on "choose databases."

Debatabase: A World of Great Debates
A collection of more than 700 debates on current, significant issues. "They cover topics from affirmative action to Zimbabwe, on all sorts of themes including politics, economics, religion, culture, science and society."

Government Resources
Provides links to both federal and state resources. Maintained by the University of Mary Washington Library.

GovTrack.us
Helps "citizens find and track bills in the U.S. Congress and understand their representatives’ legislative record."

Issues and Controversies (1995 to date)
Since 1995, Issues and Controversies has covered the most "prominent and hotly debated issues of the day," offering in-depth analyses, pro-con articles, and bibliographies. (An online subscription database; off-campus UMW users must log in)

Nexis Uni (coverage varies; mostly 1980s to date)
Contains full-text articles from newspapers, magazines, legal and business sources, reference books, and other works. To find editorials, click on "Advanced Search" and select "News" after clicking on "Select a specific content type." Add "editorial" to your search terms. Click on "Add" after filling out each drop-down window. Click "Search" when finished.

Procon.org
A non-profit organization offering nonpartisan, pro-con research articles on more than fifty controversial issues. The website "provides a "platform for people to question information, evaluate opposing views, and debate them in a respectful way."

Public Policy Issues and Groups
A collection of policy issues, interest groups, research centers, and educational sites. Maintained by the Vanderbilt University Library.

Think Tank Search
Provides a "Google Custom Search of more than 590 think tanks and research centers." Maintained by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

USA.gov
An "online guide to government information and services." See site index at the bottom.

Google Tricks

Use quotation marks for exact words or phrases.

For example, “global warming” (to search global warming as a phrase rather than two separate words).

Use an asterisk as a wildcard or a placeholder.

For example, universit* (for university or universities); “a * saved is a * earned”

Use OR to search for one word or the other. Useful for synonyms.

For example, attorneys OR lawyers

Use site: to search within a site or domain (no space after colon).

For example, “global warming” site:nytimes.com; climatology site:.gov

Use a dash to exclude a word or phrase from a search.

For example, cougar speed –car; “global warming” –site:wikipedia.org

Use allintitle: to show results with word(s) in the title (no space after colon).

For example, allintitle:“global warming”

You can also use allinurl to find websites with words in the URL.

Use related: to search for sites similar to ones you know (no space after colon).

For example, related:nbc.com

Use link: to find sites linked to a particular web page (no space after colon).

For example, link:freelancestar.com; link:pbs.org

Use filetype: to restrict results to certain file type (no space after colon).

For example, climatology filetype:pdf

Use two periods without spaces to search for a number range, such as dates, prices, and measurements.